James Joseph Sylvester
|birth_place = London, England |death_date = March |death_place = Oxford, Oxfordshire, England |nationality = United Kingdom |ethnicity = English-Jewish |fields = Mathematics |workplaces = Johns Hopkins University University College London University of Virginia Royal Military Academy, Woolwich |alma_mater = St. John's College, Cambridge |doctoral_advisor = |academic_advisors = John Hymers Augustus De Morgan |doctoral_students = George B. Halsted Washington Irving Stringham |notable_students = Isaac Todhunter Florence Nightingale William Roberts McDaniel Harry Fielding Reid |known_for = coining the term 'graph' Coining the term 'discriminant' Chebyshev–Sylvester constant Sylvester's sequence Sylvester's formula Sylvester's determinant theorem Sylvester matrix (resultant matrix) Sylvester–Gallai theorem Sylvester's law of inertia Sylver coinage Umbral calculus |author_abbrev_bot = |author_abbrev_zoo = |influences = |influenced = Morgan Crofton Christine Ladd-Franklin George Salmon |awards = Copley Medal (1880) De Morgan Medal (1887) |religion = Judaism |signature = |footnotes = }} James Joseph Sylvester (3 September 1814 – 15 March 1897) was an English mathematician. He made fundamental contributions to matrix theory, invariant theory, number theory, partition theory and combinatorics. He played a leadership role in American mathematics in the later half of the 19th century as a professor at the Johns Hopkins University and as founder of the American Journal of Mathematics. At his death, he was professor at Oxford. Life Sylvester was born James Joseph in London, England. His father, Abraham Joseph, was a merchant. James adopted the surname Sylvester when his older brother did so upon emigration to the United States—a country which at that time required all immigrants to have a given name, a middle name, and a surname. At the age of 14, Sylvester started attending the University of London, where he was a student of Augustus De Morgan. His family withdrew him from the University after he was accused of stabbing a fellow student with a knife. Following this, he attended the Liverpool Royal Institution. Sylvester began his study of mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge in 1831, where his tutor was John Hymers. Although his studies were interrupted for almost two years due to a prolonged illness, he nevertheless ranked second in Cambridge's famous mathematical examination, the tripos, for which he sat in 1837. However, Sylvester was not issued a degree, because graduates at that time were required to state their acceptance of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, and Sylvester - who was of Jewish origin - refused to do so. For the same reason, he was unable to compete for a Fellowship or obtain a Smith's prize. In 1838 Sylvester became professor of natural philosophy at University College London. In 1841, he was awarded a BA and an MA by Trinity College, Dublin. In the same year he moved to the United States to become a professor at the University of Virginia for about six months, and returned to England in November 1843. On his return to England he studied law, alongside fellow British lawyer/mathematician Arthur Cayley, with whom he made significant contributions to matrix theory while working as an actuary. One of his private pupils was Florence Nightingale. He did not obtain a position teaching university mathematics until 1855, when he was appointed professor of mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, from which he retired in 1869, because the compulsory retirement age was 55. The Woolwich academy initially refused to pay Sylvester his full pension, and only relented after a prolonged public controversy, during which Sylvester took his case to the letters page of The Times. One of Sylvester's lifelong passions was for poetry; he read and translated works from the original French, German, Italian, Latin and Greek, and many of his mathematical papers contain illustrative quotes from classical poetry. Following his early retirement, published a book entitled The Laws of Verse in which he attempted to codify a set of laws for prosody in poetry. In 1877 Sylvester again crossed the Atlantic Ocean to become the inaugural professor of mathematics at the new Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. His salary was $5,000 (quite generous for the time), which he demanded be paid in gold. In 1878 he founded the American Journal of Mathematics. The only other mathematical journal in the U.S. at that time was the Analyst, which eventually became the Annals of Mathematics. In 1883, he returned to England to take up the Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University. He held this chair until his death, although in 1892 the University appointed a deputy professor to the same chair. He died at Oxford in 1897. Recognition Sylvester invented a great number of mathematical terms such as discriminant. He has given a name to Euler's totient function φ(n''). In 1880, the Royal Society of London awarded Sylvester the Copley Medal, its highest award for scientific achievement. In 1901, it instituted the Sylvester Medal in his memory, to encourage mathematical research. Sylvester House, a portion of an undergraduate dormitory at Mason Cleveland, is named in his honour. Publications Poetry *Spring's Début: A town idyll in town centuries of continuous rhyme. Baltimore, MD: John Murphy, 1880. Non-fiction Poetics *The Laws of Verse; or, Principles of versification exemplified in metrical translations : together with an annotated reprint of the inaugural presidential address to the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British Association at Exeter. London: Longmans, Green, 1870. *''Fliegende Blätter: Supplement to the laws of verse (with Francis Bennoch). London: Grant, 1876. Science & Math *''Analytical development of Fresnel's optical theory of crystals'' (with Charles Wheatstone). London: printed by Richard and John E. Taylor, 1837. *''A probationary lecture on geometry : delivered before the Gresham Committee and the members of the Common Council of the City of London, assembled in the theatre of Gresham College, on the 4th of December, 1854''. London: George Bell, 1854. *''Outlines of seven lectures on the partitions of numbers''. London: Taylor & Francis, 1859. *''On Recent Discoveries in Mechanical Conversion of Motion''. London: Royal Institute of Great Britain, 1874. *''The Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester'' (edited by Henry Frederick Baker). (4 volumes), Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Volume I (1837-1853), 1904; Volume II (1854-1873), 1908; Volume III (1870-1883), 1909; Volume IV (1882-1897), 1912. **facsimile edition. New York: Chelsea Publishing, 1973. **Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Letters *''Unpublished Letters of James Joseph Sylvester; and other new information concerning his life and work''. Bruges, Belgium: St. Catharines Press, 1936. *''James Joseph Sylvester: Life and work in letters'' (edited by Karen Hunger Parshall). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:James Joseph Sylvester, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Nov. 26, 2013. See also *Chebyshev–Sylvester constant *Coin problem *Greedy algorithm for Egyptian fractions *Hadamard matrix *Sylvester's criterion *Sylvester domain *Sylvester's law of inertia *List of British poets References * * * Notes External links ;Poems * Selected Poetry of James Joseph Sylvester (1814-1897) (2 poems) at Representative Poetry Online. ;Books *Works by James Joseph Sylvester at Internet Archive ;About *James Joseph Sylvester in the Encyclopædia Britannica * James Joseph Sylvester at NNDB. * J.J.Sylvester Official website. * * * Collected papers – from the University of Michigan Historical Math Collection Category:1814 births Category:1897 deaths Category:19th-century mathematicians Category:Algebraists Category:Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Category:American mathematicians Category:British actuaries Category:British Jews Category:British mathematicians Category:Combinatorialists Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:Jewish American scientists Category:Johns Hopkins University faculty Category:Number theorists Category:People associated with Trinity College, Dublin Category:People associated with University College London Category:Recipients of the Copley Medal Category:Royal Medal winners Category:Savilian Professors of Geometry Category:Second Wranglers Category:19th-century poets Category:English poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Dublin Category:University of Virginia faculty